Why You Still Get Spam Today.

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This is the laboratory notebook of Damon Bruccoleri. Here you will find engrossing, thoughtful and fun commentary/opinion. Leave a comment and let others know what you think about any post here, view my photo gallery, or sign my guestbook.

"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought." - Albert Einstein

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Why You Still Get Spam Today.

I have found out why you are still getting spam in your inbox today. Did you ever wonder why with today's technology we just can't be rid of it? There must be a hundred easy solutions to be rid of it 100%.

First some history. 'Way back' in 2003-2004 I was very pleased to see much press being focused on this SPAM problem. You might have remembered all the industry proposals published in the news at that time. It seemed everyone (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL ..) had their own proposal. I found that much of the focus was emanating from Microsoft. Apparently they had a new technology (Sender ID) that would rid us of the problem.

What I found was that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) rejected the Sender ID

specification in mid-September 2004. Microsoft offered to license the technology free to everyone. But the committee was afraid that Microsoft would have too much influence over the evolving standard. At that point there was no one left championing the issue and the industry adopted some half assed technology.

The answer they adopted? The industry is implementing 'Sender Policy Framework'. SPF is not a cure for spam. It will help legitimate messages get through spam filters. It does not guarantee legitimate messages get through or that bogus messages get rejected.

I have my own opinions which I will share here.

It is my opinion that if the industry had approved the Microsoft proposal we would be virtually spam free. I believe there are many Microsoft phoebes out there. True they probably would have been able to exert influence. But I believe the consumer would be the beneficiary. My second opinion is that I believe the people who killed the proposal WANT SPAM. There is money in spam. There is money in selling spam filters. There is money in ISP who offer spam protection. There is money in being a spammer. There is money in selling internet infrastructure to support all the spam messages going back and forth. No one was supporting the rights of the consumer.

This lab note gets filed under 'Stupid People' and the consumer is the loser. You and ME. Billions of dollars each year are lost alone by people duped on phishing attacks alone! I dislike committee's and I dislike the IETF.

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